When you’re looking to help someone, it’s important to keep an eye out for moments where the person you’re trying to help… is already perfect. Most of the time, Rechaud’s stutter was paralyzing. He could get stuck in the middle of a sentence and stay stuck for 15-20 seconds. Terrible! But when Tony informed Rechaud that he was not doing to eliminate his stuttering, Rechaud responded “Yeah, sign me up for that right now.” And he said it perfectly. What does this mean? It means that even though Rechaud has been a lifelong stutterer, there are times where he speaks perfectly, with fluency, with expression, and with humor. There are moments in his speech where everything is perfect, and nothing needs to be improved. Rechaud didn’t notice it, but Tony did. We call these moments of perfection “Bright Spots” (thanks to authors Chip and Dan Heath for this great term from their book Switch). Bright Spots are happening all of the time, sometimes for just a few seconds, but we tend to overlook them. Is there a part of your life, a skill set, a habit, a belief, a relationship, where you know it’s going to work? You don’t have to worry or second-guess. Where you have faith, where you know that when you need it to happen, it will be there? That’s a bright spot, an outstanding result, a moment or a place or situation where you’re seeing the perfect result taking place, even if it’s very small or short-lived.

STEP 2: WHERE ARE YOUR BRIGHT SPOTS?

We tend to overlook Bright Spots, take them for granted, and focus more on our difficulties and problems, when we should be doing the opposite. You have to find your Bright Spots! Why? Because when something is working well, when in some area of your life you’re getting a perfect result, you’ll find you’re doing something special there, something that’s really working well. When you find something that’s working very well, what do you do? Do MORE of it! Do more of what works, get more of the result you want.

When Rechaud was saying “Yeah, sign me up for that right now,” he was in a Bright Spot: optimistic, congruent, connected, looking forward… and not stuttering at all. If he spoke like this all of the time, would he be paralyzed by stuttering? Nope. He’d be free. At that moment, Tony saw the Bright Spot. He saw that despite his lifelong limitation, whatever its causes might be, whatever his neurological situation etc., Rechaud’s speech impediment was ALSO a behavioral pattern. When Rechaud gets outside of that behavioral pattern, he can speak perfectly. The objective now: to get Rechaud outside of his pattern.

By the way, what are your Bright Spots? What are the things that come naturally to you? What are the areas of your life where you’re getting great results? Are there moments that you’re take for granted where you actually experiencing substantial confidence? What would happen if you doubled the bright spots in your life? Tripled them?

STEP 3: FIND THE KEY DECISION

Rechaud introduced himself by saying he had stuttered “as long as I can remember.” What have you done ever since you can remember? What are your limiting patterns? We all have them. Some limiting patterns are “sometimes” patterns (e.g. “Sometimes I wake up cranky”). Some of them are rare: (e.g. “I never get mad, except when…”) Some patterns are so prevalent in our lives, we feel they never go away (“I’m just not a very loveable person”).

So how did those patterns get there? Past decisions. Makes sense, right? Our lives are the products of our decisions. Now, among all of the thousands of decisions we make every week, there are some decisions which are much more powerful. We call these Key Decisions. Key decisions are the decisions we make which have a global, pervasive impact in our lives because they influence all of our future decisions. For instance: imagine a little eight year old girl who decides, one day, that people are not to be trusted. Will that affect all of her future decisions? All of her future relationships? Of course: a Key Decision like that will affect every single human relationship in her life from that point on. In fact, if she should ever find herself wanting to trust someone, what’s going to be the biggest barrier to trusting? The key decision she made as an eight year old. That’s a Key Decision. If you have a limiting pattern, you can bet there was a Key Decision that installed it in your life. Find the Key Decision, you can change that resulting pattern forever.

Tony guessed that if Rechaud has stuttered since childhood, odds are that his pattern originated with a Key Decision. Tony asked Rechaud for his earliest memory. Rechaud remembered being two years old and watching Rocky and Bullwinkle while his parents were arguing. He was worried that his father would beat his mother. Remembering this, Rechaud recognized his reason for stuttering: to distract his parents from their troubles.

STEP 4: UPDATE YOUR REASONS

If you want to be effective in any area of your life, you need to update your reasons for doing what you do. The reasons you did something in your teen years is going be different than your reasons for doing what you do in your thirties, right? We evolve.

We do the same with our key decisions. Many of your key decisions are based on the past: old decisions, old reasons, having to do with situations that no longer exist. Did you make a key decision about yourself, or about others, or about the world… as a child? Guess what? That child doesn’t exist anymore. So if you want to live NOW, you need to update your reasons.

Rechaud already had his reasons: to reclaim his career for the sake of his family. Now that he understood his key decision, it was time to break out of that pattern and create a new pattern for his speech and his life. He needed to get out of that pattern created for a reason that no longer exist, and create a new pattern based on what he needed now.

STEP 5: ACCESS YOUR POWER

Behind your limiting pattern, there is YOU. You are a force of nature. You have the power to break out of any pattern or sticking point and move forward boldly towards the future you deserve. To get past your limiting pattern, access the power and fullness of you.

Tony guided Rechaud through a Strategic Archetype Process (taught in our training) of accessing his Warrior, the archetypal part of himself that is not afraid to do combat with his own limitations, the part of himself that insists on self-expression, freedom, and victory, and is not afraid to exert himself to do so. Tony asked Rechaud to make the sound of the warrior, and for Rechaud, the sound of the warrior was a primal scream. For everyone it is different. For some the sound of the warrior is the word “love.” For some it is a song. What does your Warrior sound like?

STEP 6: BREAK THROUGH!

Rechaud found a way to break through his stuttering pattern, and as you see, confronted his biggest fear (and the biggest fear of 90% of the human race), which is public speaking. Did you see just a little change in Rechaud’s ability to articulate and express himself? Do you think he might have gotten past his limiting pattern?

Now: is Rechaud “permanently cured?” Will he never have challenges? Will he nevermore experience moments of blockage or stuttering? Of course not. He will have challenges, as all of us will. When you earn progress, you have to continue to earn it. Everybody trips, everybody has vulnerabilities, everybody has bad days now and then. The point is: this is no longer a pattern that limits Rechaud, pushing him down, and controlling the story of his life. Rechaud now knows that stuttering is not “him.” It is a pattern that used to have a function in his life, that he has outgrown, and that he now how to circumvent in order to pursue his life goals.

How about you? Is there a pattern that has dominated your life? How could you break out of it and experience life on the other side… just like Rechaud? Let us know and leave a comment below!